Thanks to YouTube’s recommendation engine, I came across something which just floored me. It’s a clip from a 1965 Italian TV special called Chitarra, Amore Mio (“Guitar, My Love”).

In it, we are introduced to a modest, soft spoken man named Vittorio Camardese. We learn that he’s a doctor—a radiologist—working in San Filippo Hospital in Rome. Because of his work, he says he doesn’t travel to play music, despite all the stickers on his guitar case. The host asks him about a “particular technique” he uses when playing the guitar, and Dr. Camardese sheepishly says yes, he always plays this way, and that he is self taught. After a brief explanation and demonstration with a major scale, the host says “Let’s hear a piece”. The good doctor suggests a Mambo.

Then he plays…

I hope you watched that through to the end. I quite literally gasped the first time I saw it. This hit me hard on multiple levels.

When I was a kid, hearing the otherworldly sounds that Eddie Van Halen was able to coax out of an electric guitar for the first time transported me. I didn’t know sounds like that existed, much less that people could make them. I needed to learn how to do what he was doing. I soon got my first electric guitar and quickly learned about tapping. For the uninitiated, it’s a technique guitar players use where they tap notes on the fretboard with their picking hand, allowing them to play quick, wide interval arpeggios and lines, as well as percussive sounds. Eddie Van Halen uses it extensively and is widely considered to be a pioneer of the technique. When the first Van Halen album was released in 1978, guitarists everywhere were blown away when they heard what EVH could do with tapping. Many guitarists adopted the technique and some, like Steve Vai, took it even further than Eddie did.

For me, seeing what the humble autodidact, Doctor Camardese, was doing on his classical guitar, well over a decade before Eddie Van Halen popularized the technique, upended what I thought I knew about how this way of playing evolved.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Eddie Van Halen got it from hearing Dr. Camardese—he probably didn’t. As far as I can tell, aside from a few appearances on Italian Television, Camardese never recorded any of his playing and was unknown outside of Italy. Plus, there were other guitarists in the ’60s and ’70s who used versions of the technique in their own playing, albeit to a more limited degree than what either Van Halen or Camardese did. What fascinates me about this is the multiple discovery aspect of it, where disparate people can independently develop similar ideas more or less simultaneously.

The other thing that hit me about the video is that it’s a strong reminder that there is talent all around us that we don’t know about, or perhaps choose not to see. Most of Doctor Camardese’s patients likely never knew that he was a guitarist, much less that he was a mad genius at it. Perhaps his coworkers didn’t even know.

Every person you encounter has a story, most of which you have no idea about. Remembering that idea fosters empathy. To me, it also means that plenty of people have skills and talents we just don’t know, and I find that idea endlessly fascinating. Look out the window, see someone, anyone, and wonder what his or her talent could be. Their stories, their skills, have the potential to transport you, if only you knew what they are.

Homenaje a Debussy (the full title of which is Homenaje sur Le Tombeau de Debussy, or Homage to the tomb of Debussy) was composed by Manuel de Falla in remembrance of the great impressionist composer, Claude Debussy in approximately 1920, or two years after Debussy’s passing.

As I read moreabout this piece, I’ve come to learn that the intentions of it are twofold. It is at once a dirge, funereal in feel, and it also should invoke the feel of a Habanera, which is a slow Cuban dance. On its face, the two sides of this dichotomy seem to be at odds with each other, as the feels of each are quite different. I mean, how do you play a solemn dance? I’m not sure I successfully invoked both in my interpretation here, but it is definitely food for thought as I explore this piece further.

Sakura (“Cherry Blossoms”) is a very well known Japanese folk song which evidently dates back about 400 years or so to the Edo period.

In his arrangement, Sakura Variations the Japanese guitarist and composer Yuquijiro Yocoh took the melody and set it against a counterpoint line. To that, he added 4 variations which are evidently intended to evoke the sound of a Koto by using playing techniques such plucked harmonics and tremolo. Certainly Yocoh’s best known work, Sakura Variations has earned its place as a popular piece in the classical guitar repertoire. I hope you enjoy my interpretation of it.

I’ve started a project this month to get some of my guitar playing recorded. For now, I’ll be focussing on my classical playing, recording both solo guitar pieces as well as duos that I’ve been working on with my friend and fellow guitarist, Frank Papineau.

This first track, Junto a tu Corazón, composed by the Paraguayan guitar pioneer, Agustín Barrios, is a truly elegant, romantic waltz—one of the few composed specifically for classical guitar. It’s not a very widely played piece, which is a shame, because I think it is so lovely. On the other hand, the virtue of it not being widely played makes it all the more special for a performer to have in his or her repertoire.

Today, Eric Meyer wrote about an unimaginably difficult situation that he and his family are dealing with:

We asked Rebecca to sit with us on the half-couch situated against the short wall of the child psychologist’s small office. She clambered up into Kat’s lap, facing toward me, looking at me sidelong with her unique mixture of shyness and impishness. I was already having trouble drawing my breath, arrested by her affection for and trust in us, and pierced by the knowledge of what we were about to do to her.

“Honey, we want to talk to you about something.”

Do take the time to read the whole post. Powerfully poignant and heartbreaking in its vulnerability, it reminds us what is really important in life. It isn’t work, nor is it gaining material possesions. All that falls away when what really matters is thrust in to such sharp relief. Go give the people you love a big hug and treasure the time you spend together with them. There is nothing more important.